July 25 through July 29 is Social Business week on Focus.com. If you’ve read my blog, you know that I’m a fan of the Social CRM movement, but I am not an expert – so I’m leaving that to the pros. I am sticking to my expertise, hosting a couple of events about social and sales and marketing. I am hosting a webinar with the master of content/inbound/social media marketing, Mike Volpe, on Friday, July 29, at 1 pm PT. Before that, I am hosting a social selling roundtable at 11 am PT with Nigel Edelshain, Miles Austin and Koka Sexton. It’s fun trading ideas for using social for a lot of things. Sales is definitely a favorite of mine.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from folks is not having enough time for social endeavors. I usually tell people I wouldn’t recommend it if it’s a time-suck. So I’ve compiled a list of easy things that salespeople can do, none of which seems too scary or daunting – and it can all be done right away. Let me know what you would add to the following list.

Create a LinkedIn profile.

Fill it out completely, including a picture.

Upgrade your account.

Watch every day from your upgraded LinkedIn account to see who clicked on your profile.

Connect with as many of your business and personal contacts as you can.

Move beyond business cards – get in the habit of connecting with people immediately after you meet them.

Spend some time seeing if your prospects are connected to any of your contacts and ask for a referral.

Join LinkedIn groups relevant to your industry. Not just so you can see the conversations happening in your space, but so you can join the same “clubs” that your prospects are in.

Figure out where your prospects are on the Internet (with only a few cases, everyone is). Is it Twitter, LinkedIn, focus.com, etc.? It could even be a message board somewhere.

Watch them. Remember the title of this post is “easy.” Don’t worry about doing much; you can just watch. You will gain insight into your prospects that you’ve never had before.

Recognize their good works. If they write an insightful blog post or answer a question really well, send them a note.

Find the top influencers in your space (they will be on Twitter or Google if they are influencers) and follow them.

Create a social relationship with the influencers. This is akin to being friends with the cool kids at school.

Before a sales call, look up your prospect’s or customer’s recent social “works” – posts, tweets, Q&A. Mention it to them; they will love it.

There – was that hard? Let’s just start with that. There’s more…but you gotta start somewhere.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

Social CRM is my new hobby. When I originally heard the term, I mocked it because I didn’t understand it. Sorry about that. Now I am listening, and I am starting to get it. Here is how I got here:

1. Ignorance: I ignored social CRM and when asked, I mocked it. Again, sorry.

2. Enlightenment: Salesforce.com bought Radian6, and I moderated a roundtable with some of the top social CRM experts in the business: Mike Fauscette, Brian Vellmure, Mitch Lieberman, Steve Woods and Esteban Kolsky. I realized that these are smart guys and I needed to figure out social CRM.

3. Education: I asked some people whom I should follow then started following them on Twitter. I started to read what I could (when I could). Brian Vellmure is now one of my boys, and is a resource for me on the topic.

Here are my observations on social CRM:

I have stopped reading regular “social media” experts. What I like about the social CRM crowd is they don’t talk about “how to set up your Facebook” page. Instead they are focused on tying social back to the organization.

Warning: It can be hard trying to distinguish the thought-leaders from the wannabes. From the looks of it, there are CRM analysts who added the word “social” to the front of their expertise. There are social wonks who have tacked “CRM” onto the back of their expertise. You have to be careful in determining who’s who.

If you want to know the definition of social CRM, I found a good one here on Focus.com.

The list at the end of this post might be wrong. I have thrown this out here to get reactions and am prepared to refine the list. Here is what I did: 1) Asked my respected friends whom to follow; 2) Added some of my favorite CRM guys (shout-out to Chris Bucholtz) even though I am not sure they all claim to be on the social CRM bandwagon. If they don’t now, they will soon enough.

How about this for a big, hairy goal that should prove to you I am beginning to understand the market: I hope Esteban Kolsky reads this and rips me. Then I know I have arrived. Seriously, if I am wrong, let me know, I am cool with that. But please don’t insult anyone.

So, here it is — the 70 (OK, 71 and now 72) people I follow on the topic of social CRM (in random order):